Hair Today,Goon Tomorrow

I don't trust the French.They invented cellulite, wasps,and eating live meat.This has contributed nil to the sum of human gaiety. Whereas the Brits invented binge drinking, pies, and sarcasm.It isn't really anybody's fault;and a great deal of national character is formed by climate. It would have been rash of the Anglo Saxon English (Celts are a special case),for instance, to make a claim to have invented sex. The French and the Italians hold a shared monopoly, if you are to believe them.Some Northern Europeans had a go,during the 70's, saying  it was their idea,and made several dubious films to demonstrate their superior raunch muscles. However,nobody could take them seriously because they all looked like gym instructors and far too healthy. I saw quite a bit of gay porn in the 70's,what with one thing and another,and got quite used to extraordinary feats of athleticism being  projected onto my bedroom wall. Mine was the only room in the house with plain white walls, and so my housemates would put rudie films on and watch them while I was getting dressed for my bar job in "Charley's Club",the only gay bar in the village. The village being Leeds. I didn't mind, I could quite see why the antics of Sven the shotputter and his adventures with Brazilian twin brothers might lose a certain sharp clarity by being projected onto a swirly orange and lime green wallpaper. And my housemates were very sweet to me,when they remembered that I was there .Two of them were Drag Queens of a high degree of preposterousness, and one was a primary school teacher who had to put his eyebrows back on every Sunday evening.He was my favourite. He looked like a thin gay Jim Davidson (yes, I know it's a stretch), and combined an essentially kind nature with an acid tongue. They were grooming me for something, but I never found out what it was. The year I lived with them was highly enjoyable,and I learned a great deal about Life,male sexuality,and how to remove stains from almost everything. I emerged a creature camper than both Christmas and an entire Millet's full of frilly pink tents combined, It was difficult re-adjusting to straight society, and I had to stop myself from drawling "Well, dear, you're a big butch number, and no mistake" when being introduced to distant female relatives at christenings and the like. At a loose end, I went to live in Waterloo with someone I had accidentally married.  It didn't really count because I had my fingers crossed. The contrast could not have been harsher. Desperate for glamour, I combined a dreary socially useful job teaching Difficult Boys in Huyton, with modelling for what my next-door-neighbour called a "Hair Saloon". This was owned by the Collinge family, who thrive to this day,despite my time with them as a "house model". I met my great pal Jon through this.In 1981, I had gone once more into the bleach, dear friends. I was a Debbie Harry emulator,with white blonde hair that disintegrated in strong sunlight. Poor Jon had been given me as his model,having truly drawn the short, straw-haired one. He told me later that he had despaired inwardly,when faced with a model who was not only un-young and un-tall, but also resembled a charity shop Barbie doll after a baby had used the head to teeth upon.
But he worked wonders on my barnet, and I went on to be a "Wella Vogue" competition finalist for 1982. There are many photographs of this wonder, in which I look like a feverish badger in pantaloons. There is even one in "Vogue".It is tiny, and in monochrome, but that is probably for the best.You spend an awful lot of time with someone when they are using your head. Fortunately Jon and I discovered that we had a similar dark and nasty ability to find things that weren't really, funny. He was an irrepressible giggler, and fond of the company of women, despite being relentlessly straight. We both liked to drink.
What more does one need in a male pal? We remain close to this day, and I went over the other week to bore his baby to sleep, as he is now a grandfather. His "Saloon" is in Birkenhead, and a constant procession of clients arrive, drawn as much by the quick-fire repartee and insane tittering, as by the hairdressing skills.Which, by the way, Jon, are superb.
Now this could not happen in a French hairdresser's establishment, where they take all forms of grooming immensely seriously. They would not dream of teasing their client's hair into twin horns with setting mousse, just for a laugh...Don't worry, punters, he only does that when he has known you for thirty years. Or if you nod off..so stay awake and be ready to join in searing local gossip and deeply dirty jokes,and you will leave Argyle St. looking marvellous, but also feeling as though you have just been trimmed by Ken Dodd and shampooed by several Goons.  But don't go to  Peter Sellers, he always takes too much off the top..